WVTK Local & State News December 14, 2011

Addison County Transit Resources has announced the kick-off of its daily winter service thru March 2nd of next year to Middlebury College’s Snow Bowl and Rikert Nordic Center. This Saturday and Sunday the Winter Schedule begins. As of Monday the 19th the Monday through Friday Winter Schedule begins. For more information, please call 388-1946 or go to www.actr-vt.org.

Sixty of Vermont’s largest commercial, industrial, municipal, and institutional energy users have joined Efficiency Vermont’s Energy Leadership Challenge, a two-year effort to reduce energy use at participating organizations by 7.5 percent by June 30, 2013. Local businesses and organizations include: Basin Harbor Club, Carris Reels, Inc., Castleton State College, Green Mountain College, Killington Pico Ski Resort Partners LLC, Middlebury College, Rutland Plywood Corporation, and Rutland Regional Medical Center.

The search committee that will select a new police chief in Rutland held its first meeting to find a replacement for Chief Anthony Bossi, whose retirement is less than a month away. A 13-member search committee made up of the city’s police commission, other elected officials and members of the public, talked about the steps for selecting a new chief, starting with the hiring of a search firm that would find and screen potential candidates.

Rutland city bridges appear headed for the March ballot. The Public Works Committee voted unanimously at a meeting this week to recommend putting a $2 million bond before voters at town meeting. The money would help cover the city’s share of work on seven bridges over five years.

Gov. Peter Shumlin says he wants to replace the Vermont State Hospital with a new 15-bed hospital in Berlin and regional facilities in Brattleboro and Rutland that would have a total of another 20 beds. He outlined his plans to replace the state hospital yesterday in Montpelier where members of his administration joined him and mental health advocates. But state Rep. Anne Donahue says the governor's plan takes Vermont's mental health system back 20 years because it does not integrate mental health care with medical care.

Vermont legislators looking at the future of the state office complex in Waterbury have been told by the Shumlin administration it will be at least two years before all workers are relocated. Administration secretary Jeb Spaulding told the committees the Shumlin administration is just starting to sift through 10 proposals for the future of state offices, including re-using the Waterbury campus, or moving the offices elsewhere.

Top officials in New England state governments say they'll be hard-pressed to make up for planned cuts at the federal level in home heating aid. The Obama administration has proposed cutting money for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program in half. In a conference call yesterday, the governors of Vermont and Rhode Island and the lieutenant governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut warned that a big cut in heating aid could leave some low-income residents unable to heat their homes this winter. They also say cash-strapped states will not be able to make up the difference.

Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont says an agreement by the U.S. Postal Service to delay the closing of 252 mail processing centers and 3,700 local post offices by five months gives Congress more time to consider postal form legislation. Tuesday's announcement comes after Sanders and a small group of senators met with the U.S. postmaster general and the chairman of the US Postal Service Board of Governors on Monday. The closings under consideration include the mail processing facility in White River Junction, which would cost 245 jobs.

The National Guard has earned a seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The final version of the defense-spending bill includes a provision co-authored by Sen. Patrick Leahy giving the guard equal standing with the other branches of the armed forces. For decades the guard was a reserve force of "weekend warriors" undermanned and ill equipped. But in recent years guard units have been called upon to be frontline forces. Leahy has helped fight for more funding for the guard. This move will give guard commanders’ greater say over how their forces are utilized.

UVM Police say they caught a campus peeping tom. 29-year-old Travis Blair now faces a voyeurism charge and is due in court next January. No word on how police tracked him down. Police say he got into the Tupper Hall dormitory Monday around noontime and snapped a photo of a female student taking a shower. Other students had also reported seeing someone matching the same description hanging around the dorm over the last few days.

The University of Vermont temporarily suspended a fraternity after a questionable questionnaire. Administrators call the social survey "highly-offensive" because of a question about rape. The school is investigating and notified police. Women’s’ groups are pushing for the frat to be permanently banned. Sigma Phi Epsilon was already on social probation for alcohol violations. Now both the school and national fraternity have told the brothers they must cease all operations.

Three Vermont hospitals are receiving national recognition. Gifford Medical Center in Randolph, Copley Hospital in Morrisville and North Country Hospital in Newport have all been named among the top 100 critical access hospitals in the nation. The National Rural Health Association measured 56 different criteria when conducting its rankings. The three Vermont hospitals were chosen from more than 1,300 critical access hospitals nationwide.

A $1 million anonymous donation will help to replace squeaky seats at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts in Burlington. The 1,453 seats at the Flynn date back to 1946. Their replacement is part of a renovation plan that also would improve acoustics and add lighting to play up the art-deco features in the lobby and on the facade of the 81-year-old building. The Flynn Center says a November 2nd Burlington Free Press article about the Flynn’s $1.5 million fundraising campaign prompted the anonymous donation.

If you’ve been naughty this holiday season look out! Santa Claus may leave a lump of coal in your stocking! But this Christmas you can take your lumps for a good cause, thanks to Keyser Energy in Rutland County. Keyser officials have announced that all the proceeds collected from its fun, new Holiday Coal Bag sales program will be donated to the Open Door Mission located on Park Street in Rutland. The company is selling the genuine coal at $2 a bag. Each decorative bag will have a hand full of hard coal tied with a holiday ribbon. To purchase your bag of coal to help the Open Door Mission, stop by a Keyser office at any one of these four locations in the Rutland County: 190 West St. in Rutland; 41 School St. in Proctor; 143 Bentley Ave. in Poultney; or 5 North Railroad Rd. in Brandon.

The fourth annual Kiwanis Bridge Building Contest will be held in Ticonderoga. This year’s contest will be held at the Ti Middle School on Saturday, January 21st. More than 60 students have already registered for the contest, which will expand in 2012 to include Crown Point Central School. The bridge contest will also include this year’s Ticonderoga High School physics class.

The goal of eating local can be tough in the winter when no crops are growing in Vermont's frozen fields, but now those crops can be found in the frozen food section of food co-ops around the Northeast. With the use of the Vermont Agriculture Agency's flash freeze unit, the stores are now offering frozen green beans, corn, broccoli and blueberries grown by local farmers. It's a pilot project to test consumer demand for local produce year-round. Because it's just a pilot project, organizers expect there is enough supply to last through mid-winter. But they hope frozen local veggies will provide a long-term opportunity for Vermont farmers.

The Vermont city of St. Albans is going to get nearly $2.1 million federal funds or its ongoing effort to rebuild its downtown. The U.S. Department of Transportation grant announced yesterday by the three members of the state's congressional delegation will help pay for improvements to the city's downtown. The project includes a redesign of Main Street and its sidewalks; and replacement of streetlights and traffic lights.

When it comes to taking care of homeless children, Vermont gets a very good score. In fact, the National Center on Family Homelessness believes Vermont is the very best in the nation in its annual report. While most of New England ranked in the top ten, Minnesota and Nebraska were two and three, behind Vermont. It was estimated there were more than 13-hundred homeless children in Vermont when the survey was taken.

New York owners may donate their unwanted car by December 31st to Cars4Charities and receive a year-end tax deduction of at least $500 on itemized federal taxes. Cars4Charities will handle the donation process and turn unwanted vehicles into cash and send the entire net proceeds to the charity the donor selects from a list provided. Cars may be donated online, as well, at www.cars4charities.org.